Reunions
by smishyfishy
Summary: Tony Stark is Nate Westen's biological father. Madeline decides that now is the time to tell Nate and Tony about this.
1. Chapter 1

Michael wasn't sure what woke him up at first. Startled and a little disoriented, he grabbed the gun from under his pillow and pointed it at the door before realizing that it was his phone ringing. Trying (and failing) to move carefully so he wouldn't wake Fiona up, he picked it up from next to the bed.

"Hello?"

"Michael," it was Madeline, "I need you to come over right now. It's important."

"Actually important, or did your coffee maker break again?"

"It's about your brother."

"What did he do this time?"

"He didn't _do _anything, Michael. Just get over here as soon as you can." She hung up.

"What's going on?" Fiona asked.

"My mom called. Apparently there's something _important _going on and I have to go over there right away. Something about my brother."

"Sounds like you could use some backup."

"He probably just needs to borrow money or something."

"Or he might really be in trouble."

"I don't want to drag you into my family stuff, Fi."

"You're not...I'm coming with you, and that's final."

"Fine, we'll take my car."  
***

Nate was already sitting at the kitchen table when they go there.

"Hey," he said, "do you know what this is about? Mom said she had something to tell me, but that it had to wait until you got here."

"No idea," Michael took off his sunglasses, "it's all a big mystery."

"Now you know how it feels," Madeline set a pitcher of iced tea down on the table. "Hi, Fiona. I'm glad you came. You're practically part of the family now anyway."

Fiona gave Michael a look, "See? You're not dragging me in."

Michael ignored her, "So, what's the big surprise?"

"I've been waiting for the right time to tell you this. Maybe I should have said something a long time ago, or maybe I shouldn't be bringing it up at all, but..." she paused dramatically, "Nate, Frank wasn't your father. Not...biologically, anyway."

There were blank stares from everyone for a solid 20 seconds before Nate said "He wasn't?"

"Mom," said Michael, "Nate is like dad was in so many ways...are you sure?"

"I'm sure." Madeline took a drag off her cigarette, "Does it really surprise you that much that I have a type, Michael?"

"So...if Dad wasn't my dad...who was?" Nate shook his head as though he had an insect lodged in his ear.

"Tony Stark."

"Are you serious?"

"Entirely. We met, well, your age plus nine months ago. He was down here for some tech conference thing."

Michael did some quick mental math, "Tony Stark would have been about 16 then..."

"Well I didn't know that at the time. He was in college!"

"And you...there is no part of this that I want to think about."

"So," said Nate, "why are you telling me this now?"

"Because after...I know none of you follow the news much, but after what happened in New York last month, it seemed like the right time. And Nate, I thought it...might be good for you to know...now that you're a father yourself."

"So," Fiona sounded unduly excited, "you're going to, what, ring the doorbell of Stark Tower and tell Tony Stark 'Hey, congratulations, you're a father'?"

"Because there's no way that could go wrong," Michael said darkly. He couldn't quite put a finger on what was bothering him about the situation, but he knew that it was there. He didn't want Tony Stark to be Nate's father, and if that had to be reality, he didn't want to interact with that reality any more than he had to.

"Well I'm all for it. I think it'll be fun."

"I'm glad _someone _does," said Madeline, "because we're all going to New York next week. I bought the plane tickets last night."  
***

Out of sheer paranoid habit, Michael didn't tell Jesse where they were going, or why, when he asked if they could get a ride to the airport. Jesse, out of more than a year of working with Michael, didn't ask, and only said "Y'all have fun on your little family vacation or whatever." when he dropped them off.

There was something surreal for Michael about going through airport security as himself. He kept expecting someone to stop him, to realize that he was _the _Michael Westen and try to kill him for something he'd done.

Fiona was just unhappy about having to put her guns in her checked baggage.

"I'm not surprised," she said softly to Michael, once they had cleared security and were waiting near the gate "that you and Nate aren't full siblings. But...Tony Stark... Next thing, you're going to tell me that you faced off against the Black Widow during the '90s."

"Not that I know of..."

"Hi. What'd I miss?" Sam sat down on the other side of Michael.

Michael and Fiona both stared at Sam for a second.

"Sam," Michael smiled as though someone had offered to let him touch their pet slug, "what are you doing here?"

"You didn't really think I'd let you guys have all the fun, did you? I had one of my buddies check which flight you were gonna be on."

"I already think this is a bad idea. You don't just go up to a billionaire and say 'here's your illegitimate child'."

"All the more reason you need backup." At this, Michael looked exasperatedly at Sam, and then at Fiona, and then back at Sam. "Plus I hear the Black Widow is smokin' hot."

Fiona rolled her eyes.

"Now boarding zone four. Attention, we are now boarding all zones through zone four."

"This is us."

The plane ride was more or less as all plane rides are. Michael and Sam looked over a stack of files with information about Stark Industries. Fiona read the latest issue of _Guns & Ammo. _Madeline mostly just chewed nicotine gum and occasionally complained about not being able to smoke on the plane. Nate stared out the window, apparently lost in thought.

They called for a cab, because they needed on of the larger ones to fit all five of them. No one spoke on the way to Stark Tower. The building was still being repaired, and only the "A" in "Stark" was still there. As they entered the lobby the assumed a kind of natural formation with Madeline at the front, Michael and Nate flanking her and Fiona and Sam behind them. The bored looking young man behind the desk didn't look up or otherwise acknowledge their presence until Madeline spoke to him.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Madeline Westen. We're here to meet with Mr. Stark."


	2. Chapter 2

"Barton?"

"Westen?"

"Tony!"

"Madeline?!"

"I'm surprised you remember me," said Madeline, lighting a cigarette, "we met once, 30 years ago."

"Mrs. Westen, please don't smoke in here," said Pepper. She had shown them to the living room, or at least _a _living room in the residential part of Stark Tower. The only Avengers currently present were Tony Stark himself and a young man sitting on the arm of a couch (right next to an unoccupied cushion) who Michael knew as Clint Barton and who, he realized, must be Hawkeye.

"What the hell are you doing here, Westen?" Clint asked.

"I could ask you the same thing. The last time I saw you, you swore you were never, ever, going to leave the Army."

"And the last time I saw you, you were getting ready to go skulking around in parts unknown. Times change."

"You know Hawkeye?" said Nate incredulously.

"I know Clint Barton, an upstart pain in my ass who is also, unfortunately, the most gifted sniper I have ever met."

"Better than _you_?"

"Not that you'd ever hear him admit it."

"We served together in Somalia in the early '90s."

"This just keeps getting more complicated." Sam remarked to no one in particular.

"Not that this isn't fascinating," said Tony, "but who _are _all you people?"

Madeline opened her mouth to answer, but before she said anything, a red haired woman came out of one of the innumerable doors connecting to the one they were in. She was still wearing a set of black satin pajamas, despite it being almost noon, but she was clearly wide awake. "Hey," she said, "what's with all the...Michael?!"  
"Natalya..." Michael looked around the room, apparently trying to find cover.  
"I don't know whether to kiss you or shoot you."  
"I struggle with that decision every day," said Fiona nonchalantly, "and neither, he's mine. Michael," she added, "who is this?"  
"Wait," said Clint, "Tasha, how do you know Westen?"  
"Uh," Tony put in, "can we talk about how a one night stand from when I was in college is standing in my living room?"  
Pepper appeared in the doorway. "Clearly you _all,_" she paused, looking at the assembled multitudes, "have a lot to talk about. How about you do it in the kitchen, where there are things like chairs, and coffee."  
"Coffee," said Tony.  
"Do you have iced tea?"  
"Certainly, Mr. Westen."  
"Aren't you like, the CEO of Stark Industries?" asked Nate, "Why are you serving coffee?"  
Pepper smiled brightly, "Did it occur to you that I _like _serving coffee?"  
Nate blinked several times and then said, "No, no it didn't."  
The kitchen contained a large table with chairs all around it, and everyone except Pepper sat down, including a man with glasses and a purple shirt, who entered the room wordlessly and sat down next to Tony. Pepper got coffee for everyone except Michael, and then poured Tony a glass of scotch as well.  
"So, now will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Tony asked.  
"Tony," said Madeline, "how much do you remember about the night we spent together?"  
Tony glanced nervously at Pepper, and then at the man sitting next to him.  
"What am I going to do," he asked, "get jealous?"  
Tony laughed at that and seemed to relax a little, "Honestly...not a whole lot. I was pretty drunk. I remember you were hot, in a MILF sort of way. You were already gone when I got up in the morning, which made things simpler. What are you getting at here?"  
"Well, six weeks after that I found out I was pregnant."  
No one said anything for several seconds. Tony's eyes flicked back and forth between Michael, Nate, and Fiona. Clint pulled his legs up so he was more perching than sitting in his chair. Pepper looked inexplicably amused. Eventually Tony said "Please tell me it's not the tall, brooding one."  
"It's not," said Nate, "it's me. Hi, I'm Nate."  
"Hi..." said Tony, "so, who are all the rest of you?"  
"This is Michael, Nate's older brother," said Madeline, "that's Fiona, Michael's girlfriend, and that's Sam, he's a friend of Michael's."  
"I wasn't planning to bring them," Michael said, "it just sort of happened."  
"Okay," said Tony, taking a sip of his scotch, "why should I believe you. You're not the first woman to tell me I fathered her illegitimate child."  
"Why would I lie?!" asked Madeline, outraged, "It's not like I'm asking you for money, I just thought the two of you should meet, finally. You have a grandson now, too, you know."  
"Tony," said Pepper, "she's telling the truth."  
"Hang on a second...you _knew _about this?"  
"Tony, it's my _job _to know about things like this."  
"And you didn't tell me because..."  
"What would you have done if I'd told you?"  
"I would have..." he trailed off, "okay, good point."  
"There's an easy way to settle this, " said the man in the purple shirt, "I can compare your DNA. With the equipment in the lab it'll only take about 30 minutes to run the test."  
"Okay," said Tony and Nate at the same time.  
"Now that's just creepy," said Sam.  
"There is a real resemblance," said Fiona thoughtfully, "a certain rakish charm..."  
"Bruce," said Natasha, who everyone had more or less forgotten was in the room, "why don't you take Nate and Tony up to the lab now."  
Tony, Bruce, Pepper, Nate and Madeline all left the room.  
"Okay, Michael," Natasha looked at him the way a cat looks out an open window at a bird, "we need to talk."


	3. Chapter 3

**Sincere thanks to my friend, confidant, and sometime editor, Audra. I couldn't do it without you. **

"Open your mouth," Bruce ran a cotton swab along the inside of Nate's cheek, "now you," he did the same to Tony.

"So you're...Bruce Banner, right?," asked Nate.

"That's me."

"He still doesn't like people knowing who he is," said Tony, "even though that 'keeping a low profile' thing pretty much stopped working once he beat up a metal alien fish in the middle of Manhattan."

"I maintain it would be safer for all concerned if my identity wasn't generally known." Bruce dipped each cotton swab in a vial of liquid, then put the vials into a machine. The machine beeped and started whirring.

"Well, when you're involved with someone as impressive as me, people are going to notice you."

"Hang on," said Nate, "when you say involved..."

"I mean _involved,_" said Tony calmly.

"You're gay?"

"Bisexual, actually, but I'm not a big fan of labels."

"_I'm _gay," said Bruce.

"Mostly," corrected Tony.

"Mostly."

"This...is a lot to take in."

"I know," Tony took a large sip of his scotch.

"I mean...I wouldn't have thought...I woulda figured if either one of us wasn't related to Dad, it would have been Michael. He's the one who..."

"Who what?," said Madeline.

Nate hesitated. Before he could answer, Tony turned to Madeline "Why didn't _you _tell me?," he asked.

"You would have been more willing to believe me when I had a new baby than you are now?"

"I had a right to know."

"Tony," said Pepper, "you wouldn't have cared."

"I have a question," said Nate, "why didn't you tell _me_?"

"What difference would it have made?" said Madeline defensively.

"It would have made a difference because maybe if I'd known that...that..." he trailed off, trying to find the right words.

"That what?"

"That I didn't have to be a loser. That everything that Dad was wasn't...written into my DNA. Maybe...I dunno. Maybe things would have turned out differently."

"Of course you didn't have to...turn out like you did."

"Yeah? Well it didn't feel that way. Everyone always knew that Michael was special, that he was smart, that one way or another he was going on to do something that mattered. Me? I was just another messed up kid from a broken home."

"Maybe things _would_ have turned out differently." Madeline put out her cigarette on one of the lab benches and lit another one, "Everything I've done, Nate, every decision that I've made, I've done what I thought was best for our family. I was probably wrong, some of the time, but I did what I thought was best, and I stand by it."

"I'm with him on this," said Tony, "what exactly did you hope to accomplish by letting him believe a painful lie when, in an astronomically improbable turn of events, the truth would have made him happier?"

"Don't. You. Dare," said Madeline, "You have _no _idea what it's like trying to keep a family together. Do you even _have _a family? Or did they just, I don't know, grow you in a vat somewhere?"

"Not to speak of. My parents died in an accident when I was 17."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Really?," Tony looked genuinely surprised, "it was in the newspaper."

"Not everyone reads every single thing the media says about you," Bruce had stopped messing with the machines, which were now showing numbers changing very fast on a display screen.

"What, you mean I'm _not _the most important thing in everyone's universe?"

"Just mine."

"You two are adorable," said Madeline.

"_Mom!_"

"What? I think it's sweet. It's not often you see _any _couple expressing affection for each other like that anymore."

_Ding!_

"That'll be the test results," said Bruce, "you ready?"

**Coming up next: Natasha and Michael have their "talk".**


	4. Chapter 4

Previously:

"_So...if Dad wasn't my dad...who was?"_

"_Tony Stark."_

"_Are you serious?"_

"_Barton?"_

"_Westen?"_

"_Tony!"_

"_Madeline?!"_

"_Natalya..."_

"_Uh, can we talk about how a one night stand from when I was in college is standing in my living room?"_

"_Why didn't _you _tell me?"_

"_I have a question, why didn't you tell _me_?"_

"_Everything I've done, Nate, every decision that I've made, I've done what I thought was best for our family."_

"_Okay, Michael," Natasha looked at him the way a cat looks out an open window at a bird, "we need to talk."_

"Okay," said Michael as nonchalantly as he could, "what do you want to talk about?"

"We never really had a conversation about what happened in Abakan."

"That's because you tried to _kill _me!"

She looked at him pointedly. "You deserved it."

"I _deserved_ to get shot with a mac-10?!"

"Yes."

He thought about it for a minute. "Okay, fair enough."

"Must have been pretty bad," said Fiona, "Michael almost never admits he was wrong."

"You have no idea," said Natasha, "we were together for almost two years. Then he turned out to be an American spy sent to investigate the organization I was working with."

"Oh, honey. Believe me, I know that one."

Natasha raised her eyebrows, "Really? Why didn't you kill him then, you seem more than capable."

"I was in a forgiving mood."

"See, Mikey," said Sam, "this is why you can't let them get in the same room."

"I didn't exactly plan this," said Michael. "And you know, Natalya, for what it's worth you were investigating me, too."

"I was, at the beginning. But then I dropped it. I swore to my organization that you couldn't be the infamous Michael Westen, because he'd never make the mistake of getting so _intimate _with an enemy operative. When I reported to them that I'd been wrong, and that you'd gotten away, they...informed me that they were no longer in need of my services."

Michael raised his eyebrows, "How did you make it out alive?"

"I'm good at what I do."

"So, Michael," said Fi, "when you told me that you didn't know the Black Widow..."

"I didn't know that she was the Black Widow. Or that she was alive, Fi, she was 19 the last time we saw each other!"

"Это потому, что ты никогда не искал на меня."

"Не правда! Я вернулся, и ты ушли."

"Я не верю тебе. Michael Westen не сентиментальны. Когда он не может использовать вас больше он забывает о тебе."

"Наташенька..."

"Don't call me that."

Michael looked startled and momentarily hurt, but he quickly adopted a sarcastic smile, "What should I call you then? Natalya Alianovna?"

"'Natasha' is fine."

"'Natasha' it is."

"I didn't follow all of that," said Clint, "but from what I did...that doesn't sound like you, Westen."

"Which part?"

"What she said."

"Times change."

"What the hell happened?

"Real life."

No one said anything for a few seconds.

"Michael," said Fiona finally, "can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

Michael looked nervously at Natasha, as though she might spring once his back was turned. "Sure," he pulled on the sliding door that led out to a small balcony, but it wouldn't open. He pulled harder, then checked for a lock he hasn't seen, but there wasn't anything other than an unmarked black pad on the wall with a small red LED light. "The door's stuck," he said.

"It's not stuck," said Clint, "it's got a genetic lock so it'll only open for people who live here or select employees. Here," he licked the back of his coffee spoon and threw it at the pad, hitting it in the exact center. The little light turned green and the door clicked open.

"Thanks," said Michael.

Out on the balcony, Fiona crossed her arms and looked at him pointedly, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"About me and Natalya?"

"Yes."

"It was a long time ago, Fi, it's in the past. I didn't think it was important. Why would I have told you?"

"Because that's what you _do _in a relationship, Michael, you tell each other things!"

Michael thought that from that perspective relationships were a categorically unacceptable security risk, but knew better than to say that. Instead he said, "We were together for two years. When she found out who I really was she tried to kill me and then disappeared. I was transferred to another assignment and got on with my life."

"Going from that, you could just as easily be talking about you and me."

From her tone, Michael could tell that Fiona was upset about that and although he couldn't begin to fathom _why, _he thought he knew what to do about it. "I could, Fi, in a lot of ways. Natalya's a lot like you, and the connection we had was similar to what there was between you and I in Ireland. But this? What I have with you now? That could never have happened with her."

Fiona uncrossed her arms, although her expression didn't change. "Why not?"

"Because you came after me, Fi, and she didn't. She never would have.

Fiona looked like she was about to say something, but then Clint tapped on the door. "Westen," he said, his voice muffled slightly by the glass between them,

"Doctor Banner and the others are back from downstairs. You're gonna want to hear this."


	5. Chapter 5

Previously:

_"So...if Dad wasn't my dad...who was?"_

_"Tony Stark."_

_"Are you serious?"_

_"Barton?"_

_"Westen?"_

_"Tony!"_

_"Madeline?!"_

_"Natalya..."_

_"Why didn't _you _tell me?"_

_"I have a question, why didn't you tell _me_?"_

_"Why didn't you tell me?!"_

_"I _deserved_ to get shot with a mac-10?!"_

_"Yes."_

_"We were together for almost two years. Then he turned out to be an American spy sent to investigate the organization I was working with."_

_"What I have with you now? That could never have happened with her."_

_"Doctor Banner and the others are back from downstairs. You're gonna want to hear this."_

Nate, Tony, Bruce, and Madeline had all come back upstairs and taken unoccupied seats.

"So," said Bruce, "I have the test results." He held up a sheet of paper with a graph and a lot of incoherent looking letters and numbers. "This probably doesn't look like meaningful information to anyone but me and Tony, and it's been...suggested that I shouldn't get into the technical details. The short version is that it's a match. Nate and Tony share about 50% of their DNA, making them either father and son or full siblings, and since Nate's mitochondrial DNA matches Mrs. Westen and Tony's doesn't, we can pretty conclusively rule out the latter."

"Okay, wow," said Nate, "I think I need to sit down."

"You are sitting down," said Michael.

"Oh. Then I think I need a drink."

"I second that," said Tony, "and third it."

Pepper wordlessly got glasses of scotch for Nate and Tony.

Once he'd had some of his drink, Tony said "So what happens now? Do I take you to a baseball game or something?"

Nate laughed. "I don't think so. But maybe we could talk about this somewhere not in front of everyone we both know?"

At that moment, two tall blond men entered the room. Both were over six feet tall, and now that they were indoors and around people, they looked uncomfortable in freshly dirty jeans and T-shirts.

The taller one, with hair down to his shoulders, looked around the room and asked, "Are you celebrating already?"

Tony looked up at him, obviously confused. "Celebrating what?

"Our victory."

"What victory?"

"We have installed the hive! In a years time we shall be able to make mead!"

"The hive...?" Tony blanched.

"The beehive," said the shorter one, "in the garden? On the roof?"

"You mean to tell me that while all this has been going on, you've been installing a box of stinging insects on the roof of _my _building?!"

"Tony," said Pepper, "this is part of the environmental effort. Honeybees are in desperately short supply, and if we have them, a lot of people will follow suit. With systemic pesticides killing off so many of the ones used for agriculture, urban beekeeping may be the future of the survival of the species. And Thor said he'd teach me how to make mead."

"And you couldn't have warned me?"

"I thought you might react badly. No idea why I might have thought that."

"Stinging insects. On my roof."

"So," said the shorter one, "not to be rude, but who are all these people?"

"Oh, right," said Pepper, "this is Nate Westen, Michael Westen, Madeline Westen, Fiona Glenanne, and Sam Axe. And may I introduce Thor Odinson and Captain Steve Rogers."

"It's an honor, sir," said Sam, standing up to shake Steve's hand. Fiona crossed her arms and made a noise that sounded like _hmph. _Greetings were exchanged, some more enthusiastic, or more wary, than others. Thor seemed more or less oblivious to the tension and introduced himself warmly to everyone, even kissing Madeline's hand, and Fiona's, much to the latter's consternation.

"First you guys, and now a box of bees on my roof. The only way this could get any worse is if..." Tony trailed off as something in his pocket started beeping. He pulled out an object the approximate size and shape of a marble cut in half, essentially transparent but somehow illuminated from within by pulsating turquoise light. He held it flat in the palm of his hand and a 2-dimensional image of a man with short hair, wearing a suit, appeared above it.

"Mr. Stark," said the man, "we have a situation."


End file.
